Chapter 41: 1385AD Breaking apart

The door opened.

"Who are you?"

The man who had been spoken to, started. He had been concentrating on the thing in his arms and nearly had forgotten that he had knocked on the door in front of him.

"Who I am isn't important," the man said while looking up to meet startling green eyes with his warm brown ones. "It is why I am here, that is the important part."

The other man's eyes narrowed, but he complied nevertheless with the silent demand.

"Then why are you here?" he asked.

"I'm here because I know you can help me," the first man answered. "I heard that you have been looking for something discretely for some years now…"

The other man's eyes widened and his eyes snapped to the thing in the stranger's arms. Then his expression closed off.

"I'm not sure if you know -"

"I know exactly what you're looking for," the first man intercepted.

"So… what's the catch?"

"Hopefully," the first man said, his expression darkening. "There is no catch."

He had risked too much to lose now, after all - his sanity, but more importantly the sanity of the one person he still considered something akin to a brother, even after all those years apart…

There is always a limit for every person. If that limit is overstepped, the person will break. No one in the entire world can bear everything thrown at them without being broken by one thing or the other.

The moment Sal destroyed the Horcrux of his brother, Sal reached his limit. And when the statue of his brother, far away in Hogwarts shattered and his ashes added to the wind, Sal's soul shattered as well.

He had killed his brother.

A child's laughter filling his head, originating in one of his memories.

He had killed his brother.

A child's eyes, filled with love, looking at him from a moment long ago lost in time.

He had KILLED his brother.

A single tear escaped his eyes. How could he?! The answer came in the coldness of his own voice - a memory from a time long gone.

" I had other responsibilities than watching him lead his life," he had said. Other responsibilities. As if his brother had been nothing but a burden. Could he have stopped it? If he had listened… if he had stayed at his brother's side - could he have saved him?

" You show remarkably little interest in the life of your brother," Antioch had said. "I would never have gotten away with such a behaviour."

" You're just like father," Medrawed had hissed. "You do nothing but cast me away for others!"

And his brother was right. Others had always come first. Strangers he had aided. His brother instead - he had killed.

" A healer cannot fight," a voice from another life-time ago told him softly. His own voice.

" And you want to fight?"

" No. I want to protect."

And protected he had, always and always. Everyone without exception. And yet, the greatest exception of all.

"I should have protected my brother," he whispered while staring at the shards of the Horcrux in his hands, blind to the snow storm that had started to rage in the wilderness of the French forest where he sat, unprotected, on the ground. "I should have protected my brother!"

Instead he had killed him.

" You act as if you think this is easy for me to do!" Sal heard his own past voice exclaim. "I once swore to protect the innocents! I never thought that this oath would mean that I once would be forced to go against my own little brother! I love you, Medrawed! If the circumstances would have been just the slightest bit different - if you just hadn't gone against everything I stand for - I would have chosen you! But as it is, I can't. Not with the knowledge of what you have done!"

And he had turned away from his brother again - just for others.

Strangers.

" You show remarkably little interest in the life of your brother. I would never have gotten away with such a behaviour."

" So you will protect those who cannot protect themselves from those who try to maim them?"

" I will" - and then he had killed his brother.

Killed him, deliberately.

Killed him in cold blood.

" You're just like father! You do nothing but cast me away for others!"

" And you will use all your skills to aid whomever needs help?"

He had sworn and he had kept his oath. Always and always. He had been a guardian to those who needed it - a child's laughter in his head. Guardian for all, but his brother.

He had been a healer - "So you prefer murdering him just to stop him." A healer to all, but his brother.

A protector - "There is no other way. Even if he would be one of us, even if he would be my own child - I would nevertheless say the same." A protector to all, but his brother.

A saint in the eyes of many - and yet, he had killed his brother. His own baby brother. And his mind kept playing all those times he had interacted with the child he had killed today.

" I had other responsibilities than watching him lead his life," he had said instead. Other responsibilities.

" You show remarkably little interest in the life of your brother. I would never have gotten away with such a behaviour."

" You're just like father! You do nothing but cast me away for others!"

" Even if you will have to aid your enemy?"

Oh, how he wished, he would have had to aid his enemy! Anything would have been better than what he had done. But he had forsworn himself. He had forsworn evil - but not the darkness. But his brother? His brother!

" I might love you, Medrawd, but the oath I took as a guardian forces me to work against you. I can't let you roam the world like you are just now. I am sorry."

" So you prefer murdering him just to stop him."

" There is no other way. Even if he would be one of us, even if he would be my own child - I would nevertheless say the same."

As if his brother was nothing to him.

" Even if you must kill someone or let someone die to ensure the safety of others?"

He had said 'yes' to that as well - and he had damned himself with it.

Even if you must kill someone - his brother's blood on his hands. His brother's soul destroyed. His brother's body nothing but ashes.

To ensure the safety of others…

How had he managed it? How had he managed to do as he had sworn when it had been his brother's life at stake? How had he been able to sacrifice his brother's life for something as shallow as 'the safety of others' ?!

Antioch. Cadmus. Ignotus.

Children - all three of them.

Antioch sailing through the air and landing on the ground with a sickening thunk. Another curse and Antioch started to scream in agony.

A child's laughter filling his head, originating in one of his memories - even if you must kill someone…

A rune-based shield that rescued Cadmus and Ignotus from the deadly curses that were shot at them. In the end, Ignotus had lost a finger and was lying next to Cadmus, both of them unconsciousness.

A child's eyes, filled with love, looking at him from a moment long ago lost in time - "Even if you must kill someone to ensure the safety of others?"

The icy steel of a short blade in his lung.

Tainted, somehow unhealthy… perverted magic surrounding his brother.

Maniac cackles.

Not his brother. Not his brother!

" Even if it will bring you harm?"

" Yes." His voice had been so sure that time. So sure that he could bear it. But he had had no idea, what it meant to be harmed back then.

" So you prefer murdering him just to stop him."

" There is no other way. Even if he would be one of us, even if he would be my own child - I would nevertheless say the same."

And he had done it.

Mercilessly.

Stoneheartedly.

He opened his eyes.

Medrawed's dying scream filled the air, then he slowly but surely turned into stone.

Another tear slit down his pale cheek and his hands loosened on the tainted and shattered thing that was once the Horcrux of his brother.

" I might love you, Medrawd, but the oath I took as a guardian forces me to work against you. I can't let you roam the world like you are just now. I am sorry."

Merciless.

Stonehearted.

Unwilling to lift a finger to rescue his brother.

And with that the frail grasp Sal still had on his broken mind and magic slipped. Instantly white flames of magic burned the wood of the forest surrounding him. Fire hot with his self-loathing. Fire icy with his hate, directed at no one but himself. The snow of the storm melted under its pressure.

Healer.

Guardian.

Protector.

Nothing mattered.

There was just one thing he was. A murderer. His brother's murderer.

And with that the flames surrounding him finally found their goal and burned him alive. At least he could judge himself now with the same magic that had just moments ago ended the life of his baby brother. Sal did not hope for mercy - he had not earned it in any way or form.

The agony of his burning flesh was the least he deserved.

" Then I bless you child. You are a Healer, you are a Warrior, you are a Guardian. You have finished your apprenticeship and you have chosen your path. May you heal others, may you judge their hearts. May you guide others, may you protect them from harm. Today, I name you a Guardian Healer - born to protect, born to judge, born to heal. So mot it be."

Far away at Hogwarts, a vampire stumbled to his feet. He had been hiding in the farthest corner of the library, hoping that he would have some peace and quiet there.

Why, oh, why had he had to promise his overbearing great-grandparents to visit regularly when they met the last time around?!

He had planned to hide away in the library from them for at least the majority of the day.

But something had happened.

Something bad.

And so he stumbled to his feet and then hurried out of the library.

He had nearly reached the entrance door, when two arms slung around him and stopped his run.

"Don't," his great-grandfather's voice said, burdened with sorrow. "There is nothing we can do."

Anastasius grabbed his great-grandfather's hands to free himself, but the older males grip was like iron.

"Great-Grandfather - please!" And he could hear desperation and the same kind of sorrow in his voice that his great-grandfather's carried as well.

"There is nothing we can do, childe. Nothing!" Was the choked and sorrowful answer. And then he could feel his great-grandfather burying his head in Anastasius' neck.

That was the moment his great-grandmother reached the entrance hall.

Her face was pale and she was looking as human as his great-grandfather and himself at the moment.

Tear streaks adorned her cheeks and when she saw them, she came straight to them, her arms surrounding both of them without another word.

"Why?" this time there was a mourning tone in Anastasius' voice. "Why?!"

"Because we are all doomed to fall one day," his great-grandfather answered. "And today was your father's day."

Anastasius shook his head.

"He's immortal. He can't die! He can't -"

"There are other ways for us immortal to die but death," his great-grandmother whispered while drawing him closer. "And he has the blood of a basilisk. Our deaths are always the most gruesome."

"No!" this time Anastasius was able to shake of his great-grandfathers hands - but his great-grandmother still stood in his way, keeping him from hurrying to where his body told him his father once had been. "No!"

"I'm sorry, childe. I'm sorry!"

"No! He is a phoenix-born! A phoenix-born! He doesn't lose himself to insanity like the basilisk does! He is a phoenix-born!"

His great-grandmother just shook her head in sorrow.

"He has my gaze. He has my venom. He speaks my language," she said and her voice was filled with bitterness and regret. "The only thing he has of the phoenix are his tears. Phoenix-born he might be - but the basilisk is stronger in his blood."

"No!" Again, the hands of his great-grandfather embraced him. "Nooo!"

And then, like a wounded, devitalised animal, he fell to his knees while tears leaked from his eyes.

"No, please! I need him still! He can't be gone! He can't! He wouldn't leave me!" he pleaded. His great-grandfather had sunken to the knees as well, still hugging Anastasius desperately.

"He was over a thousand years old, already," his great-grandmother said softly while she crouched down in front of him. "And unlike your great-grandfather and I, he has no one who belonged just to him. He is alone."

"But… what about me?"

The answer was a bitter-sweet smile.

"You are an adult, Anastasius. You don't need him anymore. Your brother is long dead and your father's friends as well. A thousand years, child, are a long time - even for immortal like us," his great-grandmother said softly. "If it weren't for me, your great-grandfather might have given himself to the eternal flames already. If it wasn't for him, I would have long since gone insane. Even now, I can feel my sanity fading. One day I won't be able to hold on anymore and I will forget that I once was a sentient being. Dying would be preferable to wasting away as a creature who can't remember its life and loved ones anymore."

"But Padre…"

"Whatever happened, his will to continue on, broke. He is fading, now," his great-grandfather said.

Anastasius choked on his tears.

"Fading?"

"Not gone, as of yet," his great-grandfather answered. "But long since without our reach. Forgive me, childe, but there's no one here who can bring him back. The only one who will be able to stop him from fading, is himself. We're part of the immortal Firbolg. Part of our curse is to be never allowed to ask him to decide differently."

"I'm not," Anastasius said, again fighting against his great-grandparents grasp. "My people die after about eight hundred years. We're not part of you - so I can ask!"

"You drank his blood for the most of your childhood, childe," his great-grandmother said. "You might not be originally part of us immortals but there is a reason why a vampire normally isn't able to consume another Firbolg's blood - and why a young vampire nevertheless does. Vampire-children are unable to grow without the model the blood it consumes provides. You might not be one of us, but your body is modelled after your father's - and he has a natural life-span of about two thousand years. So you, in a way, still belong to us - and that takes your right of objection."

"I'm not immortal! I -"

"Your father isn't as well," his great-grandfather whispered. "But that still doesn't change the fact, that we can't force him to stay alive. It is his decision, and his alone. He choose to fade. Let him go. To force him to live on, broken as he is, would be far crueller."

And this time, Anastasius couldn't object. He knew that after some time, a Firbolg was set in his ways. If that Firbolg mentally broke, there was almost no way to fix him ever again.

Anastasius loved his father dearly - and that was something he didn't want his father to be forced to suffer for eternity.

So he simply broke down and cried in the end.

Somewhere else in Britain, another man looked up when the soil of Great Britain shuddered under the pain of its magical ruler. The man was a very old man. His hair was grey and his eyes darkened by the weight of his nearly seven hundred years on earth, and yet, there was still a chance for the man to live for another two or three hundred years.

"It's time," a voice whispered in his mind - a voice that he had heard since the day his father died. "You have my permission to reintroduce yourself."

Again, the soil shuddered at the pain of its magical ruler.

The old man closed his eyes when he was assaulted by the agony of a being he hadn't seen since he had been a young man himself. He knew what he should do, what he had to do. He knew of the other's suffering and the pain the other had endured for long before even he was born and he knew that it would be mercy to let the other die, and yet…

"It's still not your time, Salazar," he whispered, his own, tired eyes seeing the future clearly for the first and maybe the last time in his life. "It's still not your time…"

It was the pureblood, the grim, in his blood that told him. The grim was Death's servant. It always knew if it was time to die for somebody the old man had met or was tied to through bonds of family or friendship.

"Not yet, not for a very long time."

The old man stood.

"Grandfather?" a young boy asked, looking up at him startled. The boy had been playing with his father's cloak while the old man had watched him smiling before the world shifted.

"Your grandfather has to go away for some time, James," the old man said. "Be a good boy and tell your father that I have left, will you?"

"Yes, Grandfather," the boy answered. Of course, he wasn't truly the grandfather of the child. More likely his great-great-great-something grandfather. Somewhere on the way he had stopped to count and simply had insisted on being called 'grandfather'. It had been easier that way, especially considering that his children's and children's children's span of life had shortened until they barely lived for a hundred and fifty years. But that was the curse of a pureblood-born like him. They might not live as long as their own parents, but their span of life was far longer than that of the average mixed-born or mundane. Even his son, a pureblood-born himself, had died some two hundred years ago and his family had long since forgotten how old he himself truly was. This had been freedom and a curse at the same time.

"Don't wait for me, James," the old man said, ruffled the boy's hair and then stepped out of the house. He looked up into the sky, then he closed his eyes and reached for the inheritance he had gained through his parents.

The thunderbird in his blood cried.

The grim howled.

And he took their power and twisted it to fit his needs and like the grim - death omen that it was - his body dissolved into molecules. The wind that the thunderbird had summoned took them up and left with them, just to spit them out into the snow-storm in the middle of a forest in France.

The place that he had landed in, was burning hot with self-loathing and icy with hatred.

White flames were consuming not only the trees themselves but also the one who had called them in his agony.

"It's still not your time, Salvazsahar," the man said and green eyes snapped to his own. Their eyes met. Warm brown eyes met desperate killing-green.

"Peverell?" The other's voice was nothing but a whispered pleading for familiarity.

The old man smiled tiredly.

"Long time no see, Salazar," he said softly and then stepped into the flames. The flames withdrew from him, not willing to hurt him since their master was not willing to destroy another one of his loved ones any time soon.

"How?" Salvazsahar whispered. "You should be dead!"

"Not yet," the old man said dismissively. "If R'ena wouldn't have fallen ill, she would be still alive as well. We are pureblood-born after all - or Firbolg-born as you call it."

The answer was a shudder.

"If you're still alive then why -"

"Why did I never contact you?" the old man finished before answering the question as well. "Because I was an idiot and thought that you would suffer even more if you had to watch me growing old and die while you still never aged a day."

A lie, but those were the words that had been whispered to him by the wind.

The answer was a startled laugh, dry and filled with flames as it was.

"And I thought that I at least concealed that fact from you," Salvazsahar said while tears started to flow. The tears were burning with white flames and their ashes left his cheeks painted black.

It was then, that the old man - Peverell, husband of Helga - reached him and knelt down in front of him.

"I'm sorry for that, Salazar," the old man said tiredly. "I shouldn't have left you alone in your suffering."

And he shouldn't have - he should have done what he thought was right, not what he was told to do. But Peverell had known his place on earth since he was a toddler. He was an instrument - and he had always been willing to submit himself to the one who loosely held his lashes.

Salvazsahar just shook his head.

"There's nothing you could have done. There's nothing you can do. The deeds are done and I destroyed the one that was once as dear to me as my own son just because a foolish vow I once made, years ago," he answered and new tears slit down his cheeks. "I deserve to burn for eternity for what I have done."

"You're mortal. You're imperfect, Salvazsahar. I think you have forgotten that, even if you have lived for a longer time than even I, even if you have seen and done even more than I ever have or will do, in the end you still don't know everything. You will err on your way, you will choose the wrong path, you will hurt and be hurt, fail and be failed, and you will suffer for it. And maybe you're right and the decision you made right now was a mistake. But maybe you weren't and in the end it wasn't your fault that whatever happened, happened -"

Salvazsahar scoffed at that and the white flames started to burn with new found vengeance.

"It was my decision. It was my fault," he said.

"And I think your mind's far too broken to see things clearly. You're set in your ways, unable to change and unable to see that you're not an almighty god," Peverell said while smiling sadly. "And yet, staying alive with a shattered mind like you are now will just lead you onto the path of no return. You will fall from the edge into the darkness if I let you be -"

"I won't stay alive. I don't want to be alive anymore. Darkness can't claim me if I die," Salvazsahar hissed and the white flames surrounding them reacted to his ire.

"It's not your time," Peverell said. "Not yet, not for a long time. I won't let you suffer insanity for the rest of your life."

The answer was a bitter smile.

"So what will you do? Try to reason with me that I didn't kill my brother?" Salvazsahar held up the broken Horcrux. "Look at it, the last thing that kept my brother alive! It was I that destroyed it. It was my hands that have done the deed. Can you truly tell me with the evidence still in my hands, that I wasn't the one who killed my brother?"

Peverell looked down at the locket in Salvazsahar's hands.

Then Peverell's eyes searched for the deadly green of the man in front of him while he mentally reached out to touch the other man's mind. The barriers of the other ones mind were down, letting him in, showing him everything.

It was more, more than Peverell had ever expected to see. It was a life that had started with suffering and that had, even in the better parts, always held a note of suffering. And for the first time, Peverell wondered why the man in front of him hadn't broken centuries ago.

The answer was a bitter one.

Myrddin, Sal's father, had predicted it centuries ago.

" You are not from this time. Even if you have been reborn here - you still should not exist here because there are no circumstances that would have led to your existence." He had said. "So your body might be in stasis until you return to your rightful time. That means you would be able to grow in mind, but not in body until then."

And the man had been right - and wrong as well.

Peverell could see the truth in the broken man before him, a man who was now set in his way of life and at the same time still struggling with himself.

And it wasn't the obvious struggle with right and wrong that was problematic, but the true struggle of someone with centuries of experience and knowledge, forced to live with the chaotic, teenage brain of a barely fifteen year old. It didn't fit. A fifteen-year-old's brain was still nothing like an adult one's. Peverell knew. He might have never studied it, but then, he had been a teacher for a time and had lived longer than anyone he knew except of Salazar. He had seen the difference in thinking between an adult and a fifteen-year-old.

" That means you would be able to grow in mind, but not in body until then." How right Myrddin Emrys had been. How wrong he had been as well. The man in front of him had definitely grown in mind, but with the brain of a child, even after centuries of living, he was still affected by its structure.

"A cursed life," Peverell concluded bitterly. "Cursed with the knowledge and experience of an old man while at the same time having the brain and body of a child. A child's desire but an adult's life since basically birth. The abilities of an adult but the unsteady magic of a child after its first maturity."

Oh, Peverell had to give it to Salvazsahar. The man in front of him knew exactly how to hide his disadvantages. Peverell guessed that Salvazsahar had learned to suppress or circumvent his teenage brain and magic by sheer will and necessity. The man in front of him definitely had matured at least in soul. But at the same time, unlike true children, the man had to fight his way into adulthood, simply because, unlike with other children, Sal's body and brain refused to age with his mind - a fact, that, so Peverell gathered, had not fully been overcome by the man in front of him.

"Well, one step forward, two steps back," Peverell mused drily, quite aware of the fact, that Sal's opinions on the world had been set for centuries now - even if it had taken longer to set them than it would have taken if Sal was normal. But Peverell was also aware that the man's brain was not structured for such a set path just yet - the only reason why there was still hope to rescue that broken man in front of him.

Peverell's hands surrounded Salvazsahar's and closed them around the locket in his hands.

"You haven't killed your brother," Peverell said. "It might seem like it for now, but the only thing you have given him in the end was the peace he never found in life. You might have acted wrongly it trying to do so, I won't be able to judge that, but in the end there was no salvation for him except of the one you provided."

Salvazsahar just shook his head and the flames surrounding them again started to lick at his features.

Peverell knew that he had no time to make Salvazsahar believe his claims, so he let it be.

Instead he did the only thing he could do.

He embraced the man in front of him while calling up his own heritage as a Firbolg-born. Powers, not used by him in centuries, flared and surrounded the body he held protectively in his arms. For a moment the magic of the other Firbolg-born fought his, while trying to stop him but unlike Sal's magic which - even if the other man had honed it far longer than Peverell - was still that of a child after its first maturity, Peverell commanded the magic of an adult. And even with the finely honed skills Salvazsahar had perfected over the centuries - skills that would gain him advantages in battle and healing that no other man had - Salvazsahar's magic had no chance to win in a fight solely based on strength, because even with Salvazsahar's ability to use the tiniest bit of his magic to do feasts that others thought impossible without powerful magic, his less mature magic lacked the strength of the magic of a mature Firbolg-born like Peverell.

Salvazsahar's magic faltered under the onslaught of his friend's and Peverell could see his magic surrounding the other man's, reining it in and forcing it to compel to its wishes. The white flames vanished and when Peverell looked down at the other man again, he could see betrayal in his eyes.

Peverell smiled.

"I'm sorry, Salvazsahar," he said while pronouncing the other one's name carefully. "But it isn't your time yet. You might hate me for it later on, rightfully so, but if you ever need me and I'm still around, come and find me. I betrayed you once, I won't do it again."

And with that he fought the other one's magic into submission.

If there had been an oblivate -spell, maybe Peverell would have used that instead, but since the spell wouldn't be around for another century or two, Peverell did something else. He returned into the still willingly open mind of the man in front of him and used the abilities given to him by birth. The storm of the thunderbird found entrance into the other man's mind and surrounded every knowledge, every experience the man in front of him once held. Peverell forced himself to continue until the recognition and awareness of those green, green eyes in front of him dimmed and finally vanished.

Peverell gritted his teeth at that.

It hurt.

It hurt to destroy the man he had held as dear as he had held Godric, his sister and his wife.

"One step forward," he whispered to himself while the grim in his blood took hold of the other man's now unguarded magic and used it to work his biding. "And two steps back."

When Peverell finally was done, he held a baby in his hands - a true baby, without any knowledge of its past or the future to come.

Peverell knew that it wouldn't be forever. He knew that his magic was only able to provide a breather for the baby that was once a man, but it was the best he could do. You couldn't heal the broken mind of a Firbolg - but Peverell had an advantage towards most of the Firbolg: his magic, the magic of the grim, had always been meant to interfere with life. Adding to that the ability of the Phoenix to be reborn that Peverell had borrowed from his victim and he guessed that there was at least a chance now to stop one of the men he held dear, a man he had hurt by trying to protect him, from fading until nothing was left but insanity.

Now he just needed to find someone who had nothing to do with Salvazsahar's past and who was willing to raise the child. Peverell knew that there was a high chance of Salvazsahar's memories being triggered if the man was surrounded by known faces.

He took the locket that Sal's tiny hands still clung to even in sleep and looked at it contemplating. In the end, he simply repaired it and then changed the pattern of the emerald's on it to resemble an 'S'.

He couldn't bear to throw something away that had caused all this suffering to the man that Peverell had known as head-strong and kind.

"Maybe it will give you something to hold on," he decided. "Maybe it'll be a good luck charm for this new chance at life."

And maybe Peverell would be able to find another family for the child in his arms - a family that would raise the boy to act differently than he did now. Peverell knew that his abilities would only be able to affect the other man's body and soul for the first fifteen years of his life - those years that the other man's body and brain had already matured once. It was the grim in his blood and the duty of one of Death's servants that gave him the ability to rewind the life of the man who was now the baby in his hands.

"Tell me, my Lord, does his suffering please you so much that you force me to prolong it?" he asked the wind while clasping the locket around the child's neck.

The answer was a laugh and a soft caress of his locks.

"Nay, Peverell, child," the wind whispered. "But it's not his time yet. He can't be claimed by Death until the circle is fulfilled."

And Peverell closed his eyes and refused to answer.

In front of his inner eye he saw his grandson James playing with the cloak of his father.

He saw his estranged, unacknowledged grandson who belonged to the Gaunt family, sitting in the Wizard's Council, waving his hand through the air - on his finger a ring with a black stone with gold engraving.

He saw the blood-shed of the wand that spread throughout the European Countries.

"The artefacts that destroyed his brother were my grandfather's and yet they came out of their encounter with him unaffected while the one who stopped the doom that follows them lies broken in my arms," he said bitterly. "I should have been there for him. I should have interfered with his brother and his greed for power."

"Grim," the wind said and Peverell stiffened. "His fate has long since been decided."

Like Peverell's had been, long since before his birth.

Like King Arthur Pendragon's had been.

Like even Medrawd's might have been.

Peverell inclined his head.

"He needs a family," he finally said. "Maybe…"

Oh, yes, maybe that family would do the trick…

"No catch?" the man on the door asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No catch," Peverell confirmed, shifting the child in his grasp. "A fifteen month old child, no family left, magical. That was what you were hoping for, wasn't it?"

The man on the door stiffened.

"Why would I need a child? I have seven of my own," he said.

Peverell smiled.

"But, as far as I could find out, your best friend doesn't. Since he refused to adopt one of your own children, you started to look for an orphan. Believe me, the one who send me was thorough in his investigation."

The other man shifted.

"What do you want for the child?" he finally asked coolly.

Peverell just smiled.

"A good home," he said. "As long as the child is well cared for neither I nor the one who send me will ask for anything else… except -"

And the man's eyes darkened at that.

"-except to be allowed to see the child again just before he reaches his fifteenth year of life. I want to explain to him why I choose to do what I did."

This time there was clear surprise seen in the eyes of the other man, then his expression darkened again.

"So you want him to know that he's adopted," he said coolly and Peverell smiled.

"He needs to know," he said. "I hid his heritage for the time being, but the moment he turns fifteen he will regain it - blood adoption or not."

The man blinked in surprise at that.

"A pureblood child?" he asked.

Peverell hesitated.

"Yes," he finally confirmed and the man leaned forward to get a better look at the child in front of him.

"Will he be able to use a wizard's magic?"

"There should be no problem," Peverell answered.

As an answer the man took the child and cradled it to his chest.

"I think his parents won't object to your conditions," he said. "Come on in. I will contact them."

And with that, the door behind them closed again.